


The Pizza King.

by 65writings



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Enemies to Lovers, Fluff, M/M, Smut, basically everyone's emotions are on high, implied/references child abuse, lots of ups and downs and circles, pizza boy AU, pizza boy!billy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-05-16 14:07:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14812823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/65writings/pseuds/65writings
Summary: Billy Hargrove's got this job. He throws a leaning stack of pizza boxes into the back of the Camero and drives them to the ungrateful and poor-tipping residents of Hawkins. He resents it in a million different ways for so many different reasons, but if it's good for nothing else, it allows him to see Steve Harrington a few times a week, which is just about the only damn thing he’s living for nowadays. Usually, it's a wordless exchange of Steve’s usual order. However, one night, Billy gets this terrible idea and pulls over on the side of the road. From that night on, Hawkins' has one less terrible-tipper and Billy Hargrove says much more to Steve Harrington than nothing at all.





	The Pizza King.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hoppnhorn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoppnhorn/gifts).



> prompt from @hoppnhorn via tumblr: Okay so, What do you think of Billy being the worst pizza delivery dude ever and Steve just /despising/ that they always send Billy with deliveries to Loch Nora? Does that sound like something you’d like? I’m in the mood for bickering and tongue wagging and Steve pretending he doesn’t order pizzas just to have Billy show up on his doorstep.

If Billy squeezes and twists the steering wheel _just_ hard enough, and _just_ right, it gives a little under the burn of his skin and the ache of his knuckles. The feeling of the leather warm and then flush to his grip the hotter he burns and the more steel there is to his grasp is relieving in a way. Or, at least, it makes the drives more bearable.

At one point in his life, driving was Billy’s best means of solace—his _only_ means of solace. But recently, with all of the things weighing on his conscience and the marathons running in his brain, to sit alone, staring straight ahead at a poorly-paved road framed by whitewashed houses and desperately turning from radio station to radio station for something not-shit to listen to is some kind of everyday torture.

He should buy some CD’s if he ever has the money.

A lot of the time, Billy can’t remember why he’d taken the job in the first place. At one point, it was to pay for his smoking habit. Cigarettes were cheap, but not the way Billy used to smoke them. He used to pick them from his dad’s packs, or just steal entire boxes from Susan’s purse, or even bum them off of friends or inferiors at school, but then it escalated and Billy was smoking more than he was breathing pure air. If he didn’t, he’d shake and bounce his knees and wipe sweat from his palms against his jeans every minute or so. Thus, stealing became too obvious and his friends spit on him when he'd ask for a sixth or seventh smoke in one day. So he snooped around for a job.

Since then, the anxiety brewing in his stomach has grown insatiable.

It took him roughly a week—a week and some incentive from Neil, who finally confronted him about stealing from his packs with a few light-slaps to the face and some well-chosen words while his hands were around Billy's throat just tight _enough_. Billy agreed to the first job that offered him anything at all... which happened to be pizza-delivering for the Pizza King on Lisa Avenue.

It took him roughly another week to regret the decision. Since then, the anxiety brewing in his stomach has grown insatiable; cigarettes be damned. Nothing can stop his rampant head anymore.

Now, he's four months into the job. He's successfully graduated from Hawkins High School as of late May, and he's perpetually depressed about the bleakness of his future—but he's not _dead_ yet or anything, so he could be doing worse. His only solace, nowadays, is the frequency with which Steve Harrington orders pizza delivered to his house, which is surprisingly often. It's always the same thing, too, no matter how many times in one week he calls in: a medium with extra cheese and black olives on half. And maybe—though he'd never admit it—that's the reason why he can't bring himself to quit.

Seeing Steve for even half a second turns the day from hopeless to bearable. Steve's always grumbly when he opens the door. His eyes flicker and meet Billy's for a fleeting moment—which is still enough for Billy's heart to surge into his throat—and then they fall away, to his hands or to the box or to something just to the left. Steve says nothing, just drops a crumbled fistful of cash into Billy's upturned hand, grabs the box of pizza with his other, and shuts the door in Billy's face. And yes, that is what makes Billy's day okay.  
It goes on like this for a while. Long enough for Billy to save some cash and buy a few CD's from the Tower Records two streets over from the middle school. He burns through them all in one day and then burns through them again. Every time he spaces out between "I'm Leaving You" and "Big City Nights" and comes-to again with the final guitar riff fading out and humming happily in his head. But he never really feels happy. Just... tired.

And then, things change.

One day after a particularly rough night, the Harrington mansion is the last stop on Billy's night-round. His head is still pulsing and groaning from where Neil had hit him over the head with a lamp-stand the night before. There is this pretty magenta bruise in a crescent on his temple that's swollen and makes his eye look dark and sunken in. He knows he's lucky though; Neil had stepped forward funny and over-extended his knee so his swing was off. It'd still flattened Billy to the ground though, and he'd de-shelved a line of his records, landing among their angular shards which had crunched even further under his weight. The fragments had dug so deep into his skin that he'd spent the next hour wrapping his hands in old t-shirts and trying to mop up the blood spattered on the floor. But he wasn't _dead_.

Billy rubs his thumb over the red-ringed scabs which mar the tanned skin of his hands. They ache and hiss with pressure, but Billy rubs them anyways as if the pain means that they are healing. It's falsely comforting.

He gets this idea listening to The Smiths—which he'd never admit being his guilty pleasure, nor his third CD purchase—and pulls over on the side of the road next to a field of corn overgrowing with weeds and fenced by twisted wires. Slanting stems of goldenrods lean out, as if trying to brush their yellow heads against the side of the Camero.

Harrington can eat his pizza cold.

Billy writes—he's always liked writing; he's always been _good_ at it; it's the only constructive way he can let things out. At the top, Billy addresses it to the only person he cares to speak to. It's a letter to Steve on sheets of lined paper which he leaves crammed into his glove compartment. It's five pages front and back and he tapes it to the bottom of Steve's pizza box.

_Ask me why, and I'll die.  
Oh, ask me why, and I'll die._

When Billy arrives at the Harrington mansion, the cardboard is thankfully still warm against his hand, even through the pages of the letter, and he knocks gently on the door. Steve opens it, per usual. His face is warm—skin pale and mouth pink—but he doesn't meet Billy's eyes. He hands Billy a twenty dollar bill—this time pressed and crisp—and mutters, "Keep the change." He grabs the box by the edge, like he always does, but as they pass the it between their hands, the letter, untouched by Steve's fingers, flops down, still attached to the cardboard on one side.

Steve furrows his brow, raising the box above his head to squint up at the pages. Billy's cheeks burn and without a second thought his legs carry him swiftly from the porch, leaving a dumbfounded Steve Harrington in his wake.

—

No one orders pizza to the Harrington address for the next two weeks. Not that Billy's keeping track and not that Billy _cares_ , but every time he arrives back to the store at eleven to park the car and help the cooks close without stopping by Steve's house on his night round, another rock settles in Billy's stomach.

Come the close of the second week, Billy spends one night worshipping the toilet in the bathroom trying to vomit out the anxiety and the distinct feeling that _he fucked up_ into the yellowed bowl. All that comes up is his dinner—leftover spaghetti with red sauce. The pieces of noodles float around in the clear water, bloated and blood-colored. Billy stares at them, pained, and then reaches to flush them away. He lays on the tiled floor, shoulder digging into the flattened bathmat and cheek to the cool ceramic and he just cries because nothing else seems to be working. He wakes up the next morning to Max stomping her converse shoe right next to his nose. He sits up—head spinning wildly—and meets her icey-blue glare. She frowns, spits out, "Mom's looking for you," and turns down the hallway with a swish of her hair.

 _Mom_.

However, within the next couple of days, the Harrington mansion, _finally_ , is second-to-last on his list for his 6 o'clock round. Seeing the name typed across the receipt overwhelms Billy with an addicting rush of calm, though quickly followed by pin-prick nerves of anxiety popping in his chest.

It's sort-of strange because instead of the usual half-olives, the order comes in as two mild, foot-long strombolis and nachos, which makes Billy feel suspicious. The idea of Steve ordering for two stirs around Billy's guts, but he clings to the vision of brown hair, brown-almond eyes waiting in the doorway and convinces himself that no matter who is with him, to see him would be enough.

Only, it isn't Steve who answers the door. Or even a chick, for that matter.

It's Mr. Harrington, still brown-eyed and curved-mouthed and sort-of gangly, but not _right_.

Billy clears his throat when Mr. Harrington's face breaks into a polite smile, happy to see his dinner arrived in a timely manner. Billy had doubled the speed-limit over the backroads, flying sixty and pushing seventy because he couldn't swallow the tug, the vision of—

Now, he just feels stupid.

He hasn't had to turn-on his charm in a while—bored of chicks, out of school, and too busy grieving over Steve Harrington—and it feels strange to do it now. But he does, letting his smolder drip with as much toxic charisma as he can muster. "Mr. Harrington," Billy smiles. He extends his free hand forwards, thumb-up and already firm.

Steve's dad accepts the extension, grasping Billy strongly and shaking once. "You must be a friend of Steve's."

Without missing a beat, Billy tightens his smile, nods his head. "Of course, of course," he lies. What a liar. "Billy Hargrove, my pleasure."

"Ah, it's nice to meet you, Mr. Hargrove. You'll have to excuse me never having introduced myself before. I travel for business often, so I'm not as present as I ought to be."

"A man's gotta do, what a man's gotta do."

"You've got that right," Mr. Harrington chuckles as he digs in his pocket for his wallet. He pats his thigh first before shoving his hand in and fishing out a polished-leather fold. It's fat—thick with cards and cash alike. Greed pricks at the back of Billy's neck. "How much do I owe you?"

"Twenty-three, fourty-two."

"You're _robbing_ me," he jokes, and pulls out a ten and a twenty. He hands them both to Billy with a smile and a thump on the shoulder. "Keep the change, son. It was nice meeting you."

Billy smiles back at him, strained and aching somewhere in his chest. "The pleasure is mine."

—

There's this laundromat on the other side of town—past the animal shelter and the arcade and the pre-school. No one really ever uses it besides people passing through or the sort-of homeless who can still afford to wash their clothes for a quarter a load. On top of it sits two apartments that are accessible by twisted flights of stairs around the back. The architecture is geometric and strange, like it wasn't planned all the way through, but there are lots of windows to look out over the alleyways of the worst part of Hawkins.

Billy recognizes the address immediately when it's listed as the last stop on his last round for the night. It leaves a bit of a sour taste in his mouth as he stares at the receipt pinched between his thumb and his index finger; it's wrinkled from his sweat. Neil had almost rented the place when they were first checking out places before moving from California. It was a rectangular living room, a doorless kitchen, and two bedrooms sticking awkwardly off the back. He and Max were going to share a room—as Neil told them—until Susan noticed a spattering of chewing tobacco stains on the carpet in the master bedroom. That was all it took for Neil to change his mind and put the family up somewhere else.

But Billy knew that there was something else about the apartment that Neil wouldn't say. He'd realized when the realtor had taken Max and Susan into the kitchen to try to convince them of the fine-ness of the appliances, and Neil had lured Billy into the second bedroom.

He'd turned around so fast that Billy hadn't had the chance to plant his feet. He stumbled backwards, catching himself with one hand against the wall. His eyes grew wide as Neil backed him up further, pressing into his space and raising a pointed finger. Neil's other hand rose in the air, itching for the slope of Billy's shoulder where Neil's thumb would fall perfectly against Billy's windpipe.

"You won't say a damn thing about sharing this room with Max," he threatened. His voice was low and much quieter than usual, but the sound still surrounded Billy on all sides. The skin of his neck tightened as if Neil's hand was already squeezing instead of hovering in the air in front of him. "Do you hear me?"

Anger bubbled hotly in Billy's chest. It was powerful, the pressure building against his sternum and clogging his throat. But he said nothing and just looked at Neil through bleary eyes. He hadn't even gotten the chance to complain; Neil just knew—what would make Billy upset, and then what buttons to push to make him submit.

"Do you _hear_ me?" Neil growled through gritted teeth. The uneven fingernails at the ends of his stubby fingers glistened like claws.

Billy swallowed, flattening himself against the wall as best as he could manage, and nodded. "Yes, Sir," he recited firmly. He didn't want to have to say it again.

Then, " _Neil?_ " Susan's voice carried like a song from the kitchen. Both Neil and Billy's eyes shifted to the bedroom door. It was closed firmly. Yet, in came Susan's voice, "Neil! Could you come take a look at this?"

Neil knew then, that there was no privacy to the place. Not with all the windows and the thin walls, the apartment above and the business below. Everyone would be able to hear the way he spoke to his son, the bone to bone, the thud of a body meeting the floor.

He couldn't risk it.

And so they bought a house on Cherry Lane where there was space between the neighboring houses, and all windows came with cloth curtains to cover them.

The apartment is just how Billy remembers it when he arrives—pizza box in hand and throwing his hip against the Camero door to shut it. The cement siding is painted a sad grey-blue, as are the rain-gutters which bend awkwardly down a particular jut of the building. The stairs leading to the doorway, which is tucked under the roof and behind a thin wall, curve around themselves pointlessly and they're framed by a thin banister which angles steeply. Only one shirt lays drying on the clothing line which connects to a pulley on one side of the building at the top of all the stairs and a light-pole across the small parking lot. It's white, with black pin-stripes running down it vertically. It shudders gently in the gusts of summer-fall air.

As Billy takes on the first of the two sets of stairs, he imagines who might live here now. Someone who likes all the windows and opens the blinds at night so the starlight can filter in. Someone who plays music loudly, but mindfully of their neighbors. Someone who orders-in instead of insulting their wife's cooking at the dinner table as he helps himself to seconds. Someone who doesn't raise their fist at their son or spit on him as he lies crumpled on the floor.

Someone unlike Neil in every way.

Billy rings the doorbell once. Through the door, he hears the thud of something hitting something else—the flesh against wood, the rattling of glass, sounds Billy recognizes and his stomach bottoms—but there is no subsequent sound. No one yells, no one curses. Inside, it's just quiet. So Billy taps his knuckles against the wood again gently and takes a step back. It takes just a moment and then the door swings open, creaking loudly. A slouched figure stands meekly in the doorway, hands behind their back and eyes flickering behind long lashes.

Steve Harrington—shirt mostly buttoned, but untucked, socked feet, and face darkened with exhaustion—finds Billy's stare with his own dilated eyes.

Billy's utterly taken aback, his head _reeling_ with shock so wildly that he can't hide it. His jaw slackens; his brow darkens; his boot scuffs the cement as he shuffles one foot backwards. He isn't sure how he's supposed to act, what he's supposed to do. He's played through this moment in his head so many times, but now that he's standing here, nothing feels real. He hadn't expected it to be like _this_ , to catch him so off-guard.

So often when he'd imagined it, Steve opened the door with a smirk. His shoulders were back, his hair neatly combed, this confidence in the way he bounces at the knees and licks his bottom lip. He'd run through all the motions—saying nothing, dropping a crushed handful of bills and coins into Billy's hand, gripping the pizza box—and then right before he'd turn to slam the door, he'd crack this wicked smile.

" _Faggot_."

And that would be it. Billy would be de-throned—not that he even feels that he's king anymore especially with high school over, but he'd know that whatever power he had left was forfeited into Steve's hands the second he'd read the words in Billy's scrawled handwriting:

_"I have to admit that I've loved you in some way from the first second I met you, even if it doesn't seem like that could possibly be true."_

But now that they're standing here—face-to-face, a doorway setting the barrier between them—it's nothing of the sort.

Steve doesn't reach for the pizza. He doesn't dig around in the pockets of his shorts. He doesn't even move, really, just stares right through Billy as if he can't afford to focus right on him.

Steve isn't all-powerful. He's utterly depleted, empty, vacant. He can't even afford what little energy it takes to hold himself properly upright. He side-steps a little, leaning against the side of the door and swaying as it swivels on its hinges.

"D'you think you could come inside... for a minute?"

What does Billy have to lose?

—

They sit in awkward silence for a long while, neither of them willing to make the first gesture. Billy sits curled into himself against the far side of the couch, next to a table lamp which glows only dimly. Steve sits diagonally from him, legs crossed ankle over knee with his hands gripping his shin, tucked into a cloth arm chair. It makes him sit funnily upright, like he is much more formal than he feels right now. Steve feels, right now, like a kindergartener. Mostly helpless, immature, shy, and absolutely clueless. Stuck in a situation he didn’t mean to get himself into in the first place.

The silence is heavy and weighs on both of them like burdens perched on their shoulders. Billy shrugs, his shirt grating against his skin, and he tugs one sleeve down roughly.

“So you’re gay,” Steve blurts.

Billy stops, his stare shifting from the ground to look at the figure now slouched in the armchair. At first Steve does not look back at him, but the tug between them is magnetic and he can't help himself forever. Billy's eyes are round and blue and pearly, like the moon. They just look at one another a moment, each sizing up the other. Then Billy winces faintly and nods his head, "Yeah.”

The room is still. No air, just clear cement sealing them in place. They’re porcelain dolls with their flush, glass, fragile skin and bright, rosy cheeks. Their eyes are unblinking and full of detail—flicks of color and stark reflections of the amber lights—and their mouths are hard and unmoving.

Billy wonders how much Steve knows without him having to say anything more. Does he know that that was the first time he’d admitted it out loud since California? Can he feel how thick his blood feels, how labored his heartbeat is, how hot his own lungs burn inside his chest? Could he come and sit closer?

“I, uh,” Steve begins. And then stops. He brings his fist to his mouth, tapping his knuckles against his slightly pursed lips. His eyebrows draw in. “I’ve been thinking about it. The letter, I mean,” he continues, and feels dumb. “Obviously.”

“ _Obviously_ ,” Billy echoes quietly. Their eyes meet for a brief moment again before darting away.

“I just. I have… a question. Sort-of.”

“Fire away.”

Steve pauses again; he is getting so good at inserting silences. But these things are hard to say. He is choking words back—Billy can see plainly—in the way he grits his teeth, the muscle in his jaw flexing, and the way he swallows two, three times in a row, the bulge in his throat bobbing under his skin.

" _Spit it out_."

Steve ignores him.

Finally though, he shifts suddenly in his seat, his feet planting on the ground, his hips rocking forward and then back before settling on the edge of his seat, his hands folded, elbows on knees, and two fingers held to his lips. He opens his mouth, closes it, and then squints his eyes as he speaks.

“Can you like both?”

“Both?" Billy repeats lamely. "Like, chicks _and_ guys?”

“Yeah, like... _both_. I mean, or is that weird…?”

Billy laughs gloomily. Something is building in his stomach, something that feels like it might push from below and explode through his ribs. “It’s not–it’s not weird. It’s called bisexual. Like Elton John or Chuck Panozzo.”

“They like both?”

“Yeah. And they probably _get_ both, too.”

“Okay, well, I,” he hesitates, “I can’t say it, but I think maybe…” Steve gestures with his hands, hoping Billy could speak the words for him. Billy doesn't. Steve is starting to pale dangerously in the face. “I mean…how would you know… if you were?”

“You just sort-of do, I guess. At least, that’s how it was for me. That, or you can try sucking a dick and see if it gets you going.”

Steve winces a little, swallows, as a dark pink blush crawls up from under his shirt collar. He adjusts his position again—curling back into himself, crossing his ankle over his knee, and dropping his gaze to the floor. "I've thought of that."

"Yeah? And how far'd you get?"

"As far as I could."

Silence descends again between them, thick like a curtain and suffocating. On the wall is a white-faced clock with the stupid roman numerals instead of numbers. Billy doesn't even bother to actually read it. Rather, he just stares at it as if transfixed. It must say that it's nearing ten o'clock. It's easier this way for Billy to resist the temptation to look at Steve. If he does, his chest might swell and burst and blood would be everywhere.

"How much of that letter was bullshit?"

Billy frowns—brow low, eyes dark, lips turned down—and reels back slightly in his seat, offended. "None of it," he states.

"Are you sure?"

Billy wants to say something like _of course_ , or _obviously_ , or _why would I lie?_ But... why wouldn't he?

All Steve knows of Billy is his fists in eye sockets, blood streaming out of an innocent nose and spattering on the cement, his opposer coughing and stumbling, Billy's vile words dripping with something noxious, and hate.

And this letter.

"Can I prove it to you?"

Steve doesn't say no.

Billy crosses the room, focusing on how steady the brown-wood floor is under his feet. He's not nervous.

He settles himself straddled over Steve's lap, and Steve lets him, sliding back in his chair and fitting his hands to Billy's waist, holding him just firmly enough. There's fear in Steve's eyes—Billy can see it plainly—but his pupils are swollen and fixed on him with an equal glimmer of wonder.

"Is this okay?" Billy asks.

 _This_ —Billy's hand smoothing up the back of Steve's neck, his thumb drawing over Steve's ear. _This_ —Steve's heart thudding, new and brave, in his chest. _This_ —them sharing the same space, the same breath, the same skin.

This—whatever _this_ is.

Steve nods.

"Can you say it to me so that I know for sure?" Billy says softly.

Steve's voice is just a whisper. "Yes... _Billy_..."

So Billy is gentle.

One hand fits to the back of Steve's neck, the other to the curve of his face. First their foreheads touch, then their noses. They pause like that and it feels like they are ascending, together, through space. Briefly, Steve pulls away, an anxious shudder falling from his nose and he swallows, blushing wildly. Billy does not chase him. He waits, rubbing a gentle circle with the pad of his thumb into Steve's skin, and lets Steve pull back in, their eyes falling closed with eyelashes fanning across warm cheeks.

Their mouths meet gingerly.

At first it's hesitant. Steve's hands are unmoving against Billy's lower back and he doesn't really kiss Billy, rather just stays there in the moment—lips lingering together, holding their breath, the pressure of body against body marking all of the places where if they could only get closer. But then Billy rocks into him, deepening the kiss, and Steve warms. His fingers roam over Billy's jeans and lock into his belt loops. The more Billy pushes, the more Steve challenges him, pushing back, biting, _tugging_ , and saying everything without words.

And they can't get enough of one another.

—

The next morning, Billy wakes slowly. He cracks his eyes and through his lashes, he catches the sunlight filtering into the room in wide beams. Dust wafts upwards and glistens like tiny stars, flashing white as they rise and then disappear. The windows are unfamiliar—spanning the entire length of the room, set strangely high-up on the wall, and framed with cream-colored curtains drawn to either side. Now that Billy thinks of it, the carpet is strange, too—weirdly flattened as if walked over endlessly, spotted off-white, and old. Besides, his own bedroom has hardwood flooring.

He stretches his arm out from the thick, feather comforter and reaches into the air. His shoulder pops once, and then as he stretches one leg over the edge of the bed, his hip cracks too. The air in the room is cold and crisp, freshly air-conditioned, and as the cold runs up his skin, he realizes that he's naked. Against the far wall, his clothes are strewn on the floor, into an arm-chair, atop a cherry-wood dresser.

Slowly, Everything begins to trickle back—hands carding through hair, arms under bodies, mouthes to necks, the softest groans when things fit together _just right_. The images, in all their picturesque beauty, play through his mind as if on a video-screen. There is the light-switch going off and the room being washed by the blue moon. There are nervous eyes, looking down and away, as a voice admitted they were unsure, but then they are round and focused as Billy's hand drew gently along the curve of their jaw and promised there was nothing to be afraid of.

_"Only what you say, okay?"_

There is the comforter wrinkling as their bodies shifted and rolled together across the mattress. There is a kiss to his ear, his neck, his collarbone, his chest, and then _down_ , all in a line. Then there is the other's head lulling back, and then his body slumping forwards into Billy's hard chest, nonsensical words cascading from his mouth, each string ended with the word _please_ elongated and breathless. And last, there is the weight of Steve Harrington's sleeping body pressing Billy down into the bed, his arms hugged around Billy's shoulders, his face nestled into the curve of Billy's neck, his body rising and falling as he breathes in and out so slowly. Content.

Billy knows right then that things won't work out.

He turns over in the bed.

There Steve is, asleep, with his face into his grey pillow and his hair sticking out in random directions; Billy's hands had done that. Along his skin are faint pink bruises which mark the lines of his neck; Billy's mouth had done that. And then, as Billy slides out from under the blankets and stands looking on at what he is about to leave behind, Steve's hand wanders out and over onto Billy's side of the bed, missing the warmth of him lying there, inches away from him. Steve searches for another moment, and then grows tired, his hand resting just where Billy's chest would have been.

Billy had done that.

Later that day, he sits slumped down in the Camero, banging his hand against the steering wheel to the beat of ACDC's "Deep in the Hole," and remembers the sinking feeling in his gut as he'd peeled out of the laundromat lot that morning. If only everything was different.

If _only_.

—

Billy presumes, then, that that is the end. That they are going to resume their normal, separate lives. That they are going to do their best to avoid one another, despite the smallness of Hawkins. That they are going to forget about each other and move on, even if, for now, Billy's heart aches around and refuses to let go of some of the most precious of their moments.

He spends the next midnight out at a bar where they don't card and makes himself visible to the ladies in the hopes of downing enough free drinks that the alcohol would do the forgetting for him. But he never pushed past the blurriness into blackness, he never felt that _click_ of everything shutting down, sliding into place, easing away to let him rest, so he went home just as unhappy and much more nauseous than hours before. The thought that that might be the last time he ever looked Steve Harrington in the eyes ever again plagues his chest.

He burns through two packs of cigarettes and cries so hard that his face goes numb before the sun hoists itself into the morning sky.

But, to Billy's surprise, Steve doesn't stop ordering pizza after that night. The orders still come in at least twice a week like clockwork, just in time for Billy's final round of the night. And it's still Steve that answers the door.

Except, it's like they've travelled back in time, hit a record scratch, reverted to what they know best. Each time the interaction is just the same as before anything had happened at all. They say little to nothing; Steve hands over his crumble of money into Billy's waiting palm; and the pizza passes from hand just before the door clicks closed in Billy's face. The only difference is that there is no festering anger, no apologies to be said, nothing unrelieved or tense; instead, they both burn with obvious shame—their eyes, if they ever do meet, drop immediately to the floor, or shift to something beyond the other; Billy taps his foot as Steve's hands tremble trying to unfold his wallet; Steve tips heavily because it's easier than asking for change; and Billy immediately lights up a cigarette the second he slides into his car and puffs as many as he can swallow the entire drive home, making sure to leave the windows rolled up so that he can kill himself much faster—and it's murderous.

Billy quits sleeping. Not that he ever really did before with the constant threat of Neil looming over him—the possibilities of what he could do to Billy while he's out—but now it's infinitely worse. Instead, he waits for everyone in the house to go to bed and showers for twice as long. He lets the thick droplets of water beat and splinter against his shoulders, hiding his face in his hands and rubbing at his eyes. He doesn't cry, but he thinks of how good it would feel to release everything he has pent-up in his chest. Pulling a towel from the stack on the back of the toilet, he wraps himself from the navel down and shuffles down the dark hallway. He shuts his door quietly, making a mental note to re-open it before dawn to abide by Neil's rules, and flicks on his bedside lamp. From the bottom drawer of his dresser, he pulls away the layer of spare blankets and paws through the stack of books he keeps stored away.

These are his favorites—ones he'd originally borrowed from the library and then secretly bought with his own money because he'd liked them so much. He hides them because he knows exactly what Neil would say if he knew he wasted his money on something so frivolous. But in times like these, when he wishes nothing more than to be anywhere other than _here_ with his brain and all the stupid thoughts that pulse inside his skull, there is no better cure than drowning himself in a book so as to be anyone else for a long while.

He pushes aside _The Catcher and the Rye_ , _The Great Gatsby_ , and _The Grapes of Wraith_ for _Cat on a Hot Tin Roof_ , which is the least worn of all twelve or so novels he has stacked on top of one another. He flicks through the first few pages, catches Brick's name at the top in a slanted font, and tosses the book onto his bed. He reads until he's sure he'll fall asleep. Then, he dog-ears the page, shoves it under his pillow, and crosses the room to open the door.

Billy knows that there is nothing to be ashamed of, that every dip in his gut as he recalls that night in Steve's apartment is tainted from every knuckle to Billy's face, every burn of his arms as he struggles under weights, every cursed word uttered over foul breath. Not because it's wrong. How could the way he felt about Steve be _wrong_? In this life of being, feeling, doing wrong, this was the one thing that set Billy's feet squarely on the ground, made him feel _right_.

But he can't help what's ingrained in him. He can't stop himself from hating how he'd admitted things, how he'd exposed himself so fully, how he'd abandoned his walls and let them crumble at nothing but Steve Harrington's eyes. Knowing that Steve has crossed so many of the safe-guards Billy has spent so long building and fortifying makes him feel vulnerable, out in the open, wounded.

Billy feels too weak.

And Steve Harrington feels too easy.

Steve had taken Billy without so much as a verbal apology, nothing but a letter chicken-scratched on filler paper and taped to the bottom of a pizza box. And it was Billy Hargrove—the one who'd tormented Steve for months on end with his wagging tongue, the glint in his blue eyes, and ringed-knuckles to his face. And he'd _slept_ with him...

He'd slept with a boy.

So they let things be awkward between them because it was easier to heal that way. Neither of them had to face up to the truth of their situation—that there is something there between them that buzzes and warms, tasting like cigarettes and secrets and threatening them with a good life together, a future that's bright—so long as they never look each other in the eyes.

—

It goes on like this for three weeks, three weeks pushing four, until one day, Steve Harrington steps out onto the porch, letting the screen door slam shut behind him, and meets Billy Hargrove's gaze without wavering. He smiles, takes the pizza box from Billy in one hand and starts scrounging around in his pocket with his other hand, looking for his wallet. He sort-of sways a bit, there's a layer of pink glass over his eyes, and he smells vaguely toxic.

Billy understands immediately—Steve Harrington's drunk off his ass.

He narrows his eyes and pushes his tongue against his lip. They're having some-sort of face-off, both unsure how to respond to the other. On one hand, Steve looks calm, almost happy with his hair flipped back smoothly, a tilt to his chin, and dimples at the corners of his mouth like he might smile with his teeth. On the other hand, atop the table just beyond Steve's busy shoulder, there are a litter of solo cups turned upside down, empty gatorade bottles without caps arranged pointedly in a row, and a half-finished bottle of Smirnoff poised standoffishly with its label to the doorway.

Steve takes a deep breath, redrawing Billy's attention, folds his lips under, and nods, his eyes popping a bit in his head. His stare is all glassy and vaguely blank. He finally tugs his wallet awkwardly from his jeans and tries to open it one-handed. Stupidly, he tilts over the pizza box trying to use his thumb to flick through his bills and instead drops the pizza flat on its top. They both stare down at it, neither moving to pick it back up.

Then Steve goes back to checking his wallet.

"How much do I owe you?" Steve asks.

"Ten-oh-nine."

"Shouldn't it cost more than usual?"

Billy furrows his brow. "Huh?"

"Did I order a drink?"

Confused, Billy looks down at his empty hands, then down further to the pizza which is still upside-down on the porch. "No? Just a medium with extra cheese on one half and black olives on the other," Billy recites.

"Oh," Steve says, his loose wisps of hair falling out of place as his head tips backwards in understanding. Then, he drops his chin heavily and looks to Billy with raised eyebrows. "So this tall glass of water is on you?"

Billy's heart stops dead in his chest as Steve reaches out his empty hand and walks his fingers up Billy's arm from his wrist all the way to his shoulder before sliding them back down. He catches Billy's fingers with his own, tugging him forwards and guiding his hands to the small of his back. As much as Billy is surprised and slightly taken aback by Steve's advances, he can't help but let out a small laugh; his eyes catch Steve smile grow at the sound.

Billy shakes his head and takes a step backwards, reopening the space between them.

"One, Harrington, you're as smooth as gravel. And two, like hell I'm for free. My straight fee is five dollars cash, though maybe for a pretty boy like you, I could consider dropping it to four-fifty."

"Well I'd consider that four-fifty well-spent."

They freeze, facing off against one another. They don't move or speak, just stare at each other, waiting for someone to make the move. It feels vaguely familiar, like they've done this before. Steve standing between Billy and the doorway, Billy itching for a cigarette, their eyes comfortably holding one another's stare, this tension jerking between them like they need to be closer.

Then Billy just laughs glumly. He shakes his head again and turns over one shoulder. "You're drunk, Steve," he says, and descends the stairwell one step at a time.

—

He gets all the way back to the store before he remembers that he forgot to take Steve's tab. He slams this Camero door loudly at his own forgetfulness, cursing under his breath. He'll have to pay ten bucks of his own money and for a pizza that is probably sitting in the trash now anyways. Whatever.

It should make him feel better—to see Steve. To _properly_ see him. To look him in the eyes and all. But it only really made him feel so much worse. Now, he remembers what his voice sounds like. His smile. Billy had touched Steve again, at one of the most delicate places to hold someone. And now he can't shake the idea that that might only ever happen when Steve's out of his right mind.

He wants to love Steve sober. And for Steve to love him just the same.

He pushes the back door open with his shoulder, buttoning his shirt back up with his hands. He may have his manager, Caroline, wrapped around his finger, but she gets pretty pissed when his shirt's not buttoned all the way up to his collar. Once, during the dead period of Steve's pizza orders, she bought vodka and asked Billy to stay after hours with her. He agreed when she'd slid him an entire bottle for himself and pulled a lighter and a half-smoked blunt from her pocket. She was in her late thirties and she looked like her father might've been a troll, but she was hip and knew the difference between shit and the good stuff, so he liked her enough. When they were both the almost-gone kind of high, they'd moved to a booth. Billy sat in first, sliding to the far side of the seat and expecting her to sit across from him.

She didn't.

Caroline sidled up right next to him, her hips out from under her shoulders so that she was leaning on him for support. If Billy wasn't so high, he'd've shoved her off right there. But he couldn't see straight exactly and he wasn't even so sure of what was going on until her mauve-colored mouth was right up to his ear.

Her whisper reeked of weed and vomit as she spoke to him softly, "I get sort-of jealous with the way other girls look at you. They look at you like they _want_ you, like they don't know that I've already _got_ you."

That is why she makes him button-up his shirt. And he does it because he doesn't want her thinking of him anymore than she has to.

So as he crosses into the kitchen, he smooths his hand down his chest and fixes his shirttail in the back. Still, Caroline finds him immediately.

"Billy?" she calls, emerging from behind one of the cooks who also looks up as he enters the room. HIs charisma was magnetic, irresistible, and _pungent_.

He stops, turns to her, and gives her one of his fake smiles. "Yes, ma'am."

"Do you know of anyone named Steve Harrington?"

Billy hesitates. " _Sorry?_ " No way he heard her right.

"Does the name Steve Harrington ring a bell?" she reiterates. Her brow sits low and furrowed over her dull eyes and her arms are crossed tightly across her flat chest.

It registers quickly that there are no good possible outcomes to this situation, that either one is going to get him neck-deep in shit. He reaches into his back pocket and palms the pack of smokes tucked there. He taps his foot, anxious to light one and sit by himself for awhile. "Yeah, it does. Why?"

"Is he a friend of yours?"

For a second, Billy isn't sure how to answer. Either way he feels trapped. He shifts his weight onto one foot and presses his tongue to the back of his lip. "Not really."

She huffs, looks at him in the eyes, and then shakes her head. "He's called here five times in the last fourty-five minutes asking for you."

Shit.

"Do you have an explanation?"

"I, uh," Billy starts. He can't imagine what Steve might've said in his drunk stupor. He hopes, though, that it's nothing irreparable. "I forgot to pick up his payment for his last order. I was sort-of distracted and turned away without him paying. I was just gonna take it out of my tips tonight when I was done. Maybe that's what it is."

"Well, he's ordered three other pizzas to his house, too. So it's probably in your best interest to deliver those and pick up that last tab," she says flatly, and turns over her shoulder to march away.

 _Shit_.

—

"I swear to Jesus Christ if you order one more fucking pizza, I will deliver the next one with a side of my hands around your throat," Billy says the second the door swings open and Steve Harrington's face appears in the doorway. He's only half-joking.

It's been an hour and a half since the last time they'd been face-to-face. It feels weird to see Steve twice in one day. That, and Steve looks put-together now, unlike he had previously. He's showered, changed into a button-up, and he's not wavering as he stands there. His feet are planted squarely under him.

He folds his lips and shoves his hands into his pockets. His brown eyes meet Billy's and there's this _look_. "Is that a promise?"

They stare at each other. Billy blinks, dumbfounded, as Steve's eyebrows raise in challenge. "Try it."

Steve nods, then pauses. With a shrug, he turns over his shoulder. "One second."

Billy just stands there are Steve disappears out of the doorway and through the living room. He leaves the door open, and Billy watches him round the entryway of the kitchen, swinging himself around by catching his hand on the wall. After a pause, there's the sound of plastic against plastic, and then Steve reappears into sight, the phone receiver between his shoulder and his ear. He twists his finger in the tan coil attached to the wall absently... or _pointedly_.

"Hi," Steve's says. Billy's jaw goes slack. "Hi, I know it's late, but I was wondering if I could place an order for delivery? . . . Oh, good, yes. Could I just have a 10 inch cheese pizza?. . . . Yep. That's all. . . . Steve Harrington. . . . Yes, the same one that called earlier. . . . Same address, yep. . . . Thank you so much! Have a good night."

There's the sound of Steve's socked feet padding across the tile. There's the sight of Steve's emotionless face passing behind the kitchen wall. There's the sound of the phone sitting into the receiver. Then, there's Steve rounding the corner moments later, the smuggest of smiles spread across his face.

—

They bang like animals after that night. They bang like the world’s going to end. They bang like no one will ever know.

For them, it becomes simple. Like some sort-of second nature to which they've finally awoken. Steve orders pizza late in the day two or three times a week. Billy makes sure that Steve’s house is on his route and not another driver’s. He hands over the extra-cheese, olives-on-half pizza; Steve tips him four-fifty slid right into the pocket of his pants, and then their mouths collide, tongues sliding past teeth, hands threading through hair, feet moving in sync, and the door kicked shut behind them.

Each time, though, there's this distinct feeling in Billy's chest that one day, things are going to revert back to that awkward, shameful phase. They're going to not look each other in the face. They're going to burn with embarrassment. They're going to try to avoid touching hands as Steve passes the change and Billy, the pizza box. Steve's going to stop ordering pizzas altogether and Billy's going to be relieved he does so.

But the day never comes.

Not after they're so wild that they dent the wall with the backboard. The sound of the drywall splintering had made Billy's stomach drop, but Steve was laughing and he still tugged Billy in through the front door by his shirt collar two days later.

Not after each time Billy slept over for the night and slid out the next morning without waking Steve, despite how tempting it was to stay—Steve's face adorably smushed into his pillow, hair tousled and framing his head, the muscles in his back expanding as he breathed and rolling under his freckled skin. He was afraid of the look on Steve's face when he rolled over and found a naked boy in his bed... _again_. But Steve still let his fingers run over Billy's hand as he tipped him four-fifty, and the second the door was closed, immediately threw his arms over Billy's shoulders and let Billy's mouth find his neck.

Nothing changes even after Steve had once slammed Billy's head against the wall, fingers ripping at his curls, knee between Billy's thighs, and Billy's body hitting the ground like a ragdoll. Neither of them apologized; things just started over again as if nothing had ever happened the next time Billy showed up on Steve's front porch, pizza in hand, but hungry for something else.

Nothing ever changes, except slowly, everything looks much brighter.

—

Snow.

In Hawkins, it comes down in these thick sheets of quarter-sized flakes. A lot of times, they don't stick; they just melt into the asphalt or water the dead grass. But when it does stick, things get... interesting.

Billy theorizes that when the forecast calls for accumulating snow, everyone who needs to drive anywhere does a line of coke before they get in their car. Suddenly, everyone has either forgotten how to properly follow road signs and stay in their lanes, or they're cocks and drive with less than a foot between their bumper and the car in front of them, pushing ten-over even though no one can see more than thirty feet ahead. Sure, Billy's pretty bad about the latter, but the second a son-of-a-bitch decides to follow _him_ that closely, God knows Billy's jamming his foot into the brakes so hard that the cardboard of the pizza boxes grate against each other as they slide forwards and sometimes dump over onto the floor.

He feels no remorse.

The people of Hawkins, in general, lack common curtesy—especially those who order food from innocent pizza places to be delivered to their houses when there is over a half-foot of snow caked to the roads. They have it delivered because it's too dangerous to get on the roads themselves, and yet, they have no problem letting someone who works for minimum wage risk _their_ life sliding over backroads at fourty-five miles an hour, hoping not to be late.

He's never really seen snow before, having lived under the warm sun of California for all the other seventeen years of his life, so now, as he drives with his windows rolled up and the heat on just enough to keep his knuckles from aching, he spends an equal amount of time focused on the white flakes circling down from the sky as the road itself. His awe is one of the few things keeping him calm, especially considering that people have been tipping poorly all day.

Steve's house is on his list, too. It's a bit earlier in the day than usual, granted, but he can grit his teeth through anything knowing that each minute he survives sets him one minute closer to Steve Harrington. The minutes do seem to go by slower, more painfully when Steve is the prize at the end of it all, but Billy would wait his whole life if he had to to see him.

Not that he'd ever admit that out loud.

Steve and Billy fuck with reckless abandon, sure, but feelings are nowhere to be found. Feelings were a one-time—first-time—thing, and that was it. Ever since then, it's skin on skin, teeth on teeth, and grips tightening on one another, but nothing about how they feel. And Billy's fine with that.

When he finally marches up the slow-blanketed staircase and knocks on Steve's door roughly, Steve opens the door within seconds. Billy is met with a wave of warm air, which is nice, considering that he has nothing but a ratty long-sleeve shirt on underneath his uniform polo. He squints his glassy eyes a bit, hoping Steve doesn't get the wrong idea; they're watering from the biting cold.

"Ah, _shit_ ," Steve says. Billy was just getting ready to offer Steve a smile, but instead his face falls into a frown.

"Nice to see you, too?" he counters. He cocks his head to one side and balls his free hand into a fist.

Steve is quiet. He's shifting back and forth between his feet, knees bouncing. He's still holding onto the doorknob with one hand, and the other he cards through his hair. One cheek is hollowed from where he's sucked it between his teeth. He doesn't really look at Billy—rather, at the logo over his chest—as he finally spits something out, "Why the fuck are they making you drive in weather like this?"

Oh.

Steve turns over his shoulder, glancing into the room behind him and debating whether to invite Billy inside. That's when Billy notices Nancy Wheeler and Jonathan Byers curled up on the couch, a bowl of popcorn wedged between them. There's a blanket draped over their laps and Jonathan's one arm is tucked around Nancy's shoulders.

_Oh._

Steve looks back to Billy, their eyes only holding for a moment before falling away. Steve grabs at his flannel jacket, pulling it across his chest and raising his shoulders to his ears. He shivers and then finally steps out of the doorway. "Get inside," he states. It's not sexy as it might normally be. It's uncomfortable, and Steve looks upset.

From behind him, Nancy straightens up on the couch. She looks like some-sort of animal, rearing to pounce on something threatening her safety. Her hair is pulled back into a messy ponytail, her curls spinning unruly behind her head, and in the few months since the end of school, she has lost some of the roundness to her face. But her eyes are still the same—circular, and blue, and innocent—and she still looks as though she is perpetually pouting. Something bitter stirs in Billy's chest. At the same time, he realizes that though he's apologized—in _full_ —to Steve, he has yet to prove himself to the couple entangled on the couch.

Jonathan and Nancy both look to Steve, alarmed, as Billy crosses through the doorframe. Billy pretends not to notice as he hands Steve the pizza so that he can bend over and untie his shoes, but the silence in the room is deafening and he's acutely aware that the whole room is focused solely on him.

Billy is thankful that Steve doesn't leave his side until he straightens up again, having set his shoes on the folded rug next to the three other pairs temporarily abandoned there. They both step out of the way and watch as Steve guides the door shut and twists the lock. As the bolt slides into place with the grate of metal on metal, Nancy gets up from her seat and folds her arms. From behind her, Jonathan shifts uncomfortably, his eyes moving from Nancy, to Billy, and then to Steve.

"Is this a good idea?" Nancy asks through her teeth. Her lips are red and her eyebrows are too far up on her face. She's talking like Billy isn't right there to hear her.

Steve rubs his palm over his face and then drags his hands through his hair. He sighs heavily and takes a few steps into the room to set the pizza down on the coffee table. Billy immediately feels vulnerable without Steve right by his side. The feeling startles him, and suddenly he knows that he should leave. _Needs_ to leave. Ice-slick roads _and_ Steve be damned.

Just as he takes a step backwards though, Steve's attention is back on him and he extends a hand in his direction. "Let's go into my room and call your manager. Alright? Tell her the roads are bad and so you've stopped off with a friend and you'll check in at the store tomorrow, okay?"

Billy's eyes are stuck on Steve's out-stretched arm. His long fingers are splayed out, the warm skin of his hands tempting, and he wants so badly to take it in his own.

That would be stupid though.

Instead, he shrugs, and motions for Steve to lead the way. "Okay, _Mom_."

_Mom._

For a second, Steve looks like he might make a snide remark right back. Billy recognizes that face of the gears turning around in his head—Steve's eyes flickering, squinting shut as he processes and his jaw flexing as he grits his teeth. Instead, he just pivots on one foot and strides off towards his bedroom, leaving a rigid and perplexed Nancy in his wake.

Billy follows him wordlessly.

—

The dynamic in the room is painful for the first hour or so, and the longer they sit there, the thicker the snow piles up outside. Billy's plans for escape are dwindling down to making Nancy and Jonathan so uncomfortable that they decide it's worth it to die on the ice-slick roads rather than stay here in the room all-together, which, to be frank, wouldn't be that difficult. Steve is really trying to salvage the evening though, and Billy can't help but admire him for trying; it's sweet, though fruitless, but regardless, it's obviously very important to Steve.

The four of them are seated awkwardly in the living room. Nancy and Jonathan are wedged into one corner of the couch. Steve third-wheels pressed up against the opposite arm with his knees angled towards them, and Billy fourth-wheels sitting all alone in the armchair. Billy knows he's an inconvenience. He's always been excellent at reading any room, but the strain between the four of them is tangible, undeniable. But he's wearing Steve's sweatpants and Steve is just a reach and a lean away and he's sitting the exact damn _armchair_ that to pry himself away would be to cut himself from a lifeline. Now that he's here, he can't help it.

Besides, when has Billy Hargrove ever allowed someone else to run him out?

Never.

Steve disappears for a moment to make more popcorn and also to fetch his VHS collection from the tiny storage cabinet under the sink. No one's hungry—the pizza opened on the coffee table is all gone but one piece, and what Nancy and Jonathan's snack bowl once contained is now fattening the four of them up from the inside—but no one had given Steve a proper no when he'd offered more snacks, so he'd pushed off the couch and vanished around the corner.

Billy feels uneasy all over again.

It's Nancy that really makes him feel put-out. Jonathan, beyond the initial surprise, doesn't seem to care one way or the other whether Billy's in the room; if Steve let him in, then he must be okay. But Nancy squares up at him, her eyes immediately shooting daggers the second he so much as shifts in his seat, or tightens her mouth whenever Billy opens his own to speak.

Jonathan's hand is petting her shoulder though, trying quietly, subtly, unsuccessfully to unwind her. He catches a stray curl, twists it carefully around his finger and then lets it spring off, dragging his thumb along the slope of her neck. She doesn't disengage.

"Really freaky weather," he comments suddenly and to no-one in particular. He's staring outside through one of the big-paned windows as he absently wraps another curl around his thumb. "I don't think the forecast even called for snow at all, let alone six inches."

No one responds.

The clock on the wall nears the same time that it'd been the last time Billy had glanced over at it so many nights ago. What time that was exactly, Billy had no idea, but it was comforting in an unexplainable way. Billy only breaks his entrancement on the ticking second-hand when Steve gusts back into the room, bowl of popcorn in one hand and a large stack of tapes in the other. He hands the popcorn off to Nancy and shuffles through his VHS' one at a time, looking over each one almost as if he'd never seen them before.

"I've got E.T.... Star Wars... Blade Runner... The Shining—" Each tape clicks against the others as he reorders them.

" _The Shining_ ," Jonathan echoes, a smile spreading across his face. Nancy turns over her shoulder and catches his grin, her hand finding his chest.

Steve looks up at Billy, his fingers lingering over the VHS in its sleeve. He's smiling too, except more wildly than both of them combined. "Are you good with that?"

Billy cracks a smile back at him and then leans away in his seat. "Yeah," Billy says. It sounds better than what he's really thinking; Steve's eyes are too alight with excitement for him to tell him that with an atmosphere as noxious as this, what movie to watch is the last thing he cares about.

Biting his bottom lip, Steve slips the VHS out and sets the case down in the empty lid of the pizza box. He shuffles across the space and kneels in front of the VCR. He presses a few buttons on the bottom of the screen, watching as a blast of static overwhelms the speaker before it goes silent and glows electric blue. He pushes the VHS in with his thumbs and then sits back on his heels. Behind him, Nancy settles into Jonathan's side, her cheek squishing against his chest. His hand grips her shoulder and Billy watches his breathing visibly slow.

It's sweet, Billy can admit. Jonathan really loves her, and hopefully Nancy can say the same thing in return.

When the movie finally kicks on, Steve straightens up. He backs up, away from the TV set and knocks his shins against the table. He turns, hand out as if he were about to apologize to it, and then laughs at himself. His eyes flicker up to meet Billy's and they share a grin. Then Steve's walking towards him, his hand now outstretched to Billy for the second time that night.

"Come sit with me?" he offers.

Billy hardens, his eyes shifting to the couch. It's long and there's plenty of space with how small and close Nancy and Jonathan are, but that's not the problem. Billy doesn't think Steve knows what he's asking.

"I'm okay."

But Steve doesn't give it up. "Please?"

Billy shakes his head.

It's one thing to be vulnerable in front of Steve. Steve is open with Billy too, in ways that he's promised he's never been with anyone else; and, admittedly, Billy likes that liability. But Steve also understands him in ways that Nancy and Jonathan never could. And maybe— _maybe_ —Steve loves Billy, or at least he cares even a little bit, like if Billy hadn't told him not to, Steve would've called at night to ask about work and in the morning to know if he arrived home safely, and that's much more than he can say for anyone else.

If Billy were to be vulnerable like that in front of Nancy and Jonathan—all it would take is Nancy running her mouth to another one of her bitchy friends and then the entire town would know the one thing that Neil had upped and moved their family to get away from.

Billy Hargrove is a fag.

And if Neil ever found out that Billy is seeing Steve Harrington, it would no longer be a matter of just _what would Neil do to Billy?_  But also, _what would Neil do to Steve?_

But, from experience, Billy knows that no one else ever thinks anything that far through. You can't risk things like that.

Steve squats down in front of Billy then, his eyes big and brown and round. He rests one hand on the arm of the chair and the other on Billy's knee. " _Please?_ " he repeats.

"I can't," Billy whispers, hoping Nancy and Jonathan would catch as little of what they say as possible.

"Why not?" Steve whispers back. Their faces are particularly close to each other and butterflies take off in Billy's gut.

"I just... can't."

"Can I promise that nothing bad will happen?"

Billy shakes his head.

"Why not?"

"It's hard to explain."

"A lot of things are hard to explain."

"Yeah."

"Can I tell them and we can go off of their reaction?"

"Tell them what?"

"That we're boyfriends."

"We're... _boyfriends_?"

"Yeah?"

"Since when are we boyfriends?"

Steve pauses, considering this. His eyes float upwards as he wracks his brain for the conversation they never had. Billy can hardly focus though with how fast his stomach had nosedived into his toes at the word.

"I guess since now," Steve concludes.

Billy nods, relief swirling like a hurricane in his stomach. It feels strange; he feels light-headed. "Please don't tell them."

Steve frowns. "Do you not want to be with me?"

Billy's eyes widen as he sucks in a breath. He leans in closer to Steve. "It's not that. It's just. It's hard to _explain_."

"Everything's hard to explain!"

"Yeah."

"Please, just come sit with me," Steve begs. He's looking up at Billy with doe-eyes as if it would be so easy to do. "Please."

Billy huffs.

Every smart cell in his brain begs him not to do it. To not risk what they have— _all_ of what Billy has—for this stupid moment. They've been so careful, always making sure the door is closed before they put their hands on one another, never talking of one another to outsiders, saving feelings for themselves so as not to push things when they know that in the long-run, there's no-where to go anyways. And yet, here they are, throwing everything away as Billy pushes himself out of the armchair and settles into Steve's side on the couch.

Nancy and Jonathan rip their eyes from the beginning of the movie to take in the scene playing out right next to them. To Billy, their wide-eyed stares and the physical stiffening of their ribs confirm every fear that bubbles in his chest. For once in his whole life, he really could cry right here, no matter who's watching. He can feel it now—the burn of his arms as he holds two forty-five pound plates over his head for the turn of an hour, his father screaming words like " _faggot_ " and " _burn_ " as tears mark trails down Billy's cheeks; the descent of a black fog as he gets into the back of his father's car destined for another conversion camp, and this time, one that will work, as Neil promises Susan; the rush as he throws back half a bottle of pills and washes them down by guzzling anti-freeze from the garage.

But the shock on their faces is less that there's a boy holding another boy and more that Steve Harrington's got his arm around Billy Hargrove's shoulders and they're sharing the same throw blanket, and _look at the way Steve's looking at Billy's profile..._

"Your nose is still red," Steve says softly, only for Billy to hear. "Still cold?"

Billy shakes his head. He doesn't want to admit that the blush on his face is from how badly he wants—he _needs_ —to burst into tears. Eyes trained forwards, he watches the television screen pan-down to the mountain-grey hotel fenced in by parked cars in solid, bright colors.

"I feel bad for pressuring you, now," Steve admits.

Billy grits his teeth. " _Now?_ " He turns to face Steve. "What about thirty seconds ago?"

"I'm sorry."

Billy shakes his head.

Nancy clears her throat from the other side of the couch. She's leaned away from Jonathan's side to peer over at them. "Steve?"

Steve pulls his face away from Billy's to meet her eyes. Billy watches his profile as he takes in her demeanor. She is still and looking at him very seriously. "Yeah?"

"Is there any more popcorn in the pantry?"

Billy's heart slips inside his chest, deflating like a balloon, his vision pitching out. Without even looking, Steve pulls Billy in tighter to his side. He just _knows_.

"Yeah, there should be three or four more bags, I think. Help yourself."

"Thanks," she smiles politely, and pushes away from the couch.

All three of them follow her figure as she goes—her ponytail wagging, her hips swishing, and her nose tilted up in the air.

"So," Jonathan begins as soon as she has rounded the doorframe. He's leaning forwards now, his hands rubbing quickly between his spread knees. There's a smile growing on his face until he finally catches it by folding his lips under. "Are you two... a thing?"

Billy stays silent. Jonathan looks unbothered by the sight of two boys tucked into one another. His eyes follow Steve's hand which pulls up from around Billy's waste to circle around Billy's shoulder, and then—his smile unwavering—he regains eye contact with Steve. But Billy still feels put-out. He feels scared.

God, why the _fuck_ is he afraid of _Jonathan Byers_?

"Yeah," Steve answers for them. His thumb rubs purposefully over Billy's shoulder, slowly disengaging his muscles and relaxing Billy further into his side.

Never in his life has Billy felt so susceptible.

"That's nice," Jonathan says. "I'm happy for the two of you. I've heard that you were unstoppable together on the basketball team, so I hope that you are unstoppable together in life, too."

Billy considers that as Steve offers a polite thank-you.

Nancy reappears through the doorframe now, a heaping bowl of popcorn in one hand and the other swinging daintily by her side. As she sits down, a few of the topmost kernels roll off and Jonathan catches them in his palm. He pops them in his mouth after offering them back to Nancy, and then directs his attention back to the movie.

Nancy, on the other hand, fixes her eyes on the two of them. Billy's heartbeat quickens in his chest, like it thinks that he's already running. Despite the tight, but genuine smile on her face, his foot starts thumping heavily against the floor and his mind wanders to the ashy smell of a cigarette. Steve lays his free hand on Billy's knee, but doesn't push to stop the movement.

"You two look so cozy," she says in her sing-song voice. "May I ask, how long have you been together?"

It's as if she's pulled a perfect one-eighty from just minutes ago. There's no hate in the small smile playing over Nancy's face. Sure, there's wavering confusion and questions dangling just between them, but she's _smiling_.

"Not even four minutes," Steve answers with a grin.

They all laugh.

—

Sometime during the movie, Billy passes out cold. In hindsight, he feels bad about it, remembering how excited Steve was beforehand about watching the movie in the first place. But there was no way he could help himself what with the warmth of their bodies pressed together, the blanket tucked up around Billy's middle, Steve's thumb rubbing patterns into his back, and then Steve's chest making the most comfortable pillow.

When he wakes up, he's asleep on what is now, seemingly, _his_ side of Steve's bed. And so is Steve. They're totally wrapped up in one another—Billy's face in Steve's neck, their hands interlaced, their legs this way and that like the were both fighting to be the one to hold the other.

Something in Billy's chest feels healed, a wound freshly closed.

Billy readjusts himself and Steve accommodates with ease. That's when Billy notices that Steve is already awake too, though newly-so as Billy can tell by the smallness of his brown eyes. For a moment, they just look at one another and breathe.

"Good morning," they both eventually greet one another at the same time. Billy buries his head back into the crook of Steve's shoulder, smiling like a dummy. Steve re-grips Billy again, tighter this time and closes his eyes.

If only they could be like this all the time.

After minutes and minutes just laying there, holding each other and mumbling pointless conversations, they both shuffle out of the bedroom one after the other. Jonathan and Nancy are already awake, sitting on the couch together, but apart, facing one another and sipping from matching mugs.

"Good morning, sleepy-heads," Nancy smiles from behind her cup.

"We took the liberty to make some coffee," Jonathan says. "It should still be warm."

Steve tips his head in thanks and continues his zombie-shuffle to the kitchen. He rubs his eyes and then stretches his arms above his head so that his shirt rides up and shows off his midriff. Billy hurries up behind him and catches his hand on the bare skin there, gripping Steve by the hip and pressing a kiss to his cheek.

"I want-to tell you good morning again," Billy says, his voice still low with the hour.

Steve backs himself into the counter, leading Billy in closer with his smile. Their noses are almost touching. "Tell me again."

Billy slips both of his hands around Steve's middle, squeezing gently at the flesh gathered just above Steve's hipbones. He rests their foreheads together, holding Steve's gaze with his own. They stand like that for a long time, just looking into one another's eyes.

"Good morning."

Then, Steve reaches out and brushes one of Billy's loose curls behind his ear. He drags his fingers down, lingering them under Billy's jaw. Their mouthes close the rest of the space there and they kiss and kiss over and over again, each one tasting like the morning and the softness of after-rain.

—

Billy catches the tail-end of the window curtain shifting out of and then back into place as he climbs the last of the apartment stairs which are grey with cold. He's not as out of breath as he has been in the past—what with jogging up and down the two flights so often, and smoking less and less each day—but his breath forms in swirling puffs in the air in front of him.

He hasn't felt this good in a long while.

He knocks on the door gently with his knuckles and leans against the doorjamb patiently. It takes Steve only a few seconds to open the door, and when he does, he's grinning wildly. There's a pinkness to his cheeks and a February glow to his skin. He's wearing a thick, ugly sweater—salt and pepper and frayed unfashionably—and slippers. His gaze finds Billy's face, greeting him with the warmth of his eyes, and then it drifts upwards to the top of the doorframe.

"Huh..." he says, a thick coating of innocence facading his voice. He bites at the corner of his mouth before continuing. "Would you look at that? That looks like it must be _mistletoe_ up there? How odd?"

"Yeah, how _odd_ , considering that Christmas was _two months ago_ ," Billy agrees.

The sprig is duck-taped to the doorframe, like Steve had just been waiting to press it there at just the right time. It's so stupid, he thinks to himself, but he can't help but catch a hard grin. He leans forwards and presses his mouth to Steve's—sweet and gentle and soft. A lovely sigh falls from Steve's mouth, humming blissfully against Billy's lips. And—no matter how many kisses they've had or will have—a few butterflies still take flight in Billy's chest, gusting their wings over his ribcage and heating him from the inside.

He'll never get enough of this.

They pull away slowly, noses lingering together, then eyelids carefully flickering open. Steve pecks Billy's mouth once, twice, three times, and then a forth.

In between, Billy adds, "You can just ask for kisses, you know."

"I know, but that's boring. And I'm not _boring_."

"You're not boring," Billy confirms.

They kiss once more in conclusion and then pull away. But, as they regain their own personal space, Steve frowns, pouting—his lips pursed, slick and pink and _calling_ Billy, and his brown eyes shiny.

"Can you stay?" he asks. "Even for just a minute?"

Billy smiles and shakes his head glumly, carding his hair through his newly-shortened fringe. Steve's eyes followed his movements lustily. The hair had somehow made Billy just that much more irresistible, that much easier to miss, and Steve had told him so. And it was flattering.

"I've got another twenty minutes on this loop and then most likely the next one's already getting lined up," he says. "I really, really need the money."

Steve groans, and it fades into a whiney, " _No_..." He hooks his fingers in the belt loops of Billy's pants, pulling him forward by the hips until they're flush. Billy feels so deliriously tempted, but he can't. He needs the money, what with his father's hand cracking down ever more heavily and the idea of _moving out_ so close and yet so far.

"Why does it have to be like this...?" Steve laments. "It's unfair."

Billy nods. He steps forwards, touching their foreheads and then rubbing their noses across one another, catching at the bridge jostling Steve's head just a little. They stay like that, Steve's nose to the slope of Billy's ear, Billy's head resting heavily against his lover's. Everything feels like mourning, but gilded with gold.

"Soon," Billy promises. Although he doesn't know exactly what it is that he's promising.

Warm dawns in bed, their arms draped heavily over one another's chests, faces nestled into pillows, noses tickled by post-sex hair. Late nights sitting naked on white towels, Billy's necklace clinging to his sweat-slick skin, and a ceramic bowl of chocolate-chip ice cream cradled in Steve's palm—sometimes it's mint or raspberry. A house that overlooks the beach, where they could watch the waves rumble and rise with a grey, oncoming storm. The thickest wedding band stacked on top of a silver engagement ring, and that stacked on top of a delicate promise ring of delicate wires twisted into something firm, and the prettiest hand to bare them all. A long life of living high and together and _happy_ , as best as he could manage.

Maybe none of that.

Maybe all of that and more.

—

Steve flings the door open before Billy can even knock. He has this look on his face like he means business—his arms folded across his chest and tugging at his t-shirt, his brow heavy and dark over his shiny eyes, and his shoulders slumped forwards and up, crowding his neck and chin. He leans his shoulder against the white-painted doorway and glares at Billy, who returns his stare by cocking his head to the side and squinting at him right back.

"I have a proposal," he says.

Billy presses his tongue to the back of his lips and cracks a smile. He holds his empty hand in the air, waving it to dismiss him. The white ring on his middle finger flicks away the afternoon sunlight. " _Woah!_ " he laughs. "Slow down, Harrington. We haven't even talked about _kids_ , for Christ sake." There's a knowing sarcasm to his voice. "Besides, you better take me to the beach or somewhere. Mexico, maybe. Plus, you're not even on your knees."

"Ha _ha_ ," Steve deadpans. "For the _record_ though, we're having kids."

"Over my dead body."

"Don't play this game."

"What game?"

Steve rolls his eyes. He resettles his posture and regains his initial formality. "My dad has an opening. He needs an ambassador of some kind to add to the staff who does all the schmoozing to get good deals. Make phone calls and stuff. I said I knew a guy."

" _Me?_ "

"Yeah, _you_."

Billy thinks for a moment. He thinks of how much he hates this pizza job—driving all alone with his fucked-up head, dealing with irritating customers who don't know how to tip, his car always smelling like burnt cheese and red sauce, never making enough to save enough. He thinks of the long year he's spent always wishing he was doing something else, but just _knowing_ that his life was dead-set for nowhere. He thinks of how much easier things could be. He thinks of Steve, and coming home earlier in the day and always to his brown-eyed boy. He thinks of California.

"I don't know shit about business, Steve."

Steve shrugs. "My dad's the bossman. He knows all the intricate stuff. He just needs someone to help make deals, talk them out of shit and into other shit. That's right up your alley. Nothing more perfect. I'm sure he would train you and all... but, er, if you don't want it... I get that."

"No, no," Billy breathes out. Collects himself. "That sounds great. I'll take it. If you're for-real."

"I'm forreal."

"Do I need to—"

"I was thinking, maybe you could come for dinner tonight. Meet my parents. They still haven't seen the new place. I've invited them over. I'm just waiting for a call back. You could meet my dad there."

 _Oh_.

Billy just nods. He thinks about the first time—the last time—he'd met Steve's dad. How much they look alike. He meets Steve's eyes accidentally, not realizing he'd been avoiding them. There is this magnitude between them. They look at one another for a long moment and then Billy is stepping forwards, taking Steve by the waist and pressing another ginger kiss to his down-turned mouth.

"What time?" Billy asks, lowly, their faces still so close together. He's nervous, but he's been nervous before.

"Seven-ish. Give or take. What time do you get off?"

"Doesn't matter. Manager owes me time anyways. Then again, if this goes over well—"

"It will."

They smile at one another gingerly, cheeks glowing bright in the mid-day sun and eyes sparkling because there's something being contained in there—something that shimmers and burns and can't be expressed any other way.

"Should I come early?" Billy asks.

"I was thinking more along the lines of... staying late."

Billy nods and catches Steve's hand in his own.

—

Years down the road, things look different. The sky is a brighter blue and the grass a more verdant green. The air is warm year-round and they sit on their back porch under their retractable awning and let the wind tousle their hair. They hardly ever wear shirts, just polyester shorts and expensive leather flip-flops and for Steve, three or four coats of sunscreen.

When they do wear shirts, they look nice. They dress—somewhat on purpose—in complimentary colors, always something pale, but bright. Billy still doesn't know how to button his shirt up, but he's chiseled and golden and no one ever seems to mind. His hair is still short, Steve's still long and the wind catches loose strands and sets them out of place. They stop together in front of store windows and fix their silhouettes in their reflections, turning to one another for confirmation that everything looks right. They _always_ look right. Their keys and wallets sit fatly in the pockets of their shorts, and the faces of their watches glint harshly in the sun. There's a glow to their skin, a glow to their smiles, a glisten in their eyes. Someone's always got their hand wrapped around the other somehow—hand on shoulder, hand in pocket, fingers in belt loop, fingers around fingers, hands in hands.

Everyone knows who they are and that they're in love.

It is a future that they both only vaguely imagined. It is a future they both craved, but couldn't let themselves relish in—it seemed too impossible. But when they found one another, found some sort of promise there—not just from one another, but from the universe in some silent, but obvious way—it dawned on them that perhaps it wasn't so far-away after all.

It was for this future that Billy'd accepted that job with Steve's dad. It was why he took out loans and went to college, got his masters in business and started looking for the bigger and better. It was why he went to see a therapist and promised to talk more openly with Steve. It was why he let him in as far as Steve ventured, telling him things that he'd bottled up for so long. It was why he showed Steve his scars. And it was why he brought Steve home roses. And why he made promises that almost sounded too good to be true.

It was for this future that Steve was thankful he'd moved into a cheap apartment, saving most of what he had for an ambiguous tomorrow that might never have come. It was why he made plans and looked for California houses and didn't ask for more than he could chew. It was why he drove Billy to his appointments, and held his hand in the car on the way home. It was why he asked respectful questions, and answered everything that he was asked in return. It was why he took things seriously, but made light of everything he could. It was why he said yes to everything Billy offered, and then made them tamer, but just as golden.

It was why they held hands when they stepped off the plane in California. Why Billy didn't care that everyone could see Steve kiss him on the corner of his mouth. Why Steve didn't think twice about signing both their names on the lease papers. Why they are happy.

 _So_ happy.

**Author's Note:**

> I'd love to say a huge thank-you to @hoppnhorn for prompting me not only once, but twice! I love writing fics, but struggle to find a purpose to do so, so to have received a request from someone else is very helpful for me as a writer. 
> 
> This was meant to be something quick and easy. I wrote the first 4k in about nine days, trying to figure out where I wanted to go with it, but then, come the tenth day, I sat down and forced myself to crank out another 7k in the 12 hours I spent awake. This has been really cathartic for me! Writing fanfic is, in a way, my means of escape, so to have this going for me for awhile was very nice.  
> Either way though, this is the longest thing I've ever written in my life, topping the previous record of 21 pages! 
> 
> Anyways, I'll shut up now. I hope that this was enjoyable. I would love any and all feedback—compliments and criticisms alike. I am really trying to improve my writing!
> 
> Thanks :-)


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